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ROBO ROLLING WITH THE MILITARY SERVICES DRIVE THE NEXT GENERATION OF A BY DAVID C. WALSH Robots in the military have a longer history than you might think. During World War II, radio-guided target drones were launched from Navy ships, directed by sailors toggling joysticks on small control boxes. At least one explosives-packed, unmanned B-17 boasted a television camera, enabling monitor-equipped ground personnel to maneuver it to a target. But things have changed a lot in the 70 years since. The most striking example will be on display June 5-6 in Pomona, Calif., during the finals of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s increasingly global and ground-breaking competition. Twenty five commercial, university and government teams will vie for $3.5 million in prize money in a disasterresponse scenario whose degree of difficulty has increased as the teams have shown progress over the past couple of years. DRC entries must be battery-powered and unconnected to power cords, “fall arrestors,” or wired communications tethers. Teams must communicate with their creation over a secure wireless network, which will be randomly degraded to simulate actual emergency situations. The robots will have to drive a vehicle, cut through a wall, remove debris, connect a fire hose and perform other tasks. And they’ll have to stay upright; inability to recover from stumbles means failure. “Come June, we’ll see [government/academic cooperation] in action,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during an April 25th address at Stanford University. “This event will showcase how work on smaller sensors, pattern recognition technology, big data analysis, and autonomous systems with human decision support, could combine into a rescue robot ... that navigates a disaster-stricken area with the same speed and efficiency that you or I would … but without putting anyone at risk.” DOD’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) is developing its own auton- omously controlled machines, and helping oversee others. One is the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR.) (Among ONR’s collaborators is Virginia Tech, whose ESCHER robot is contesting the DARPA Challenge.) A 2014 Navy-filmed Va. Tech. video shows hosewielding SAFFiR onboard facing a roaring fire—the first such demo of its kind. Although still tethered, unlike the robots in DARPA’s challenge, SAF- FIR is being developed with impressive speed. The Navy hopes one day all ships will have robot fireman and safety inspectors. 18 MAY/JUNE 2015 | DefenseSystems.com FOUR-WHEELED FRIENDS Humanoid robots might be getting a lot of attention, but the military has long relied on radio-controlled “tractor-type” robots—IED-hunting mini-tanks, mostly—as regular tools. An entire Pentagon enterprise—the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO)—exists solely for this purpose. The capabilities for these unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) have, though, moved well beyond familiar “find ‘em, explode ‘em” tasking. The Marines’ MAARS is emblematic. Built by Britain’s QinetiQ North America/Foster-Miller, the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System is a true multi-tasker. An advanced test-bed dating to 2008 and laden with technology, it can feature various combinations of ISR sensors, such as pan-and-tilt day/night and zoom-lens cameras, FLIR night camera, thermal imagers, front and rear and infrared drive cameras and laser rangefinders that work out to 10 kilometers. It also could include a high-intensity spotlight, siren, a “dazzler” to temporarily blind restive crowds, voice projector, M240 machinegun, hostilefire detection system, Uzi submachine gun, even smoke generators if required to quit the battle space. Not to mention a quad-40 milimeter rocket or grenade launcher. Like Army iterations, it’s tele-operated, with the controller remotely situated, tapping a keyboard and viewing a computer monitor. A wearable option is a possibility. For now, its range is line-of-sight. The project comes under the Combat Robotics System (CRS) program. “We started CRS to understand how the dynamics of manmachine interactions would work,” said Capt. James Piniero, a Marine Warfighting Lab robotics project lead handling multiple portfolios. “And essentially, we’re less concerned with the specific equipment piece than with concept-based experimentation.” The focus is on how robots might help infantry Marines as they do static-post guards, explosive ordnance disposal crews and engineers. “MAARS acts as an advanced optics suite with a direct-fire weapon aboard,” he said. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE Its multiple capabilities notwithstanding, MAARS isn’t perfect, though its limitations aren’t with the platform but with how it’s controlled. Marine ground robots in general “don’t yet have the level of autonomy required to navigate” glitchlessly, or understand certain basic commands,